


Daisy Game

by Maria_Laney



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: First Crush, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29941515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maria_Laney/pseuds/Maria_Laney
Summary: David's thoughts wander and he resorts to rather embarrassing means to assure himself of what he desperately hopes is the truth.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Daisy Game

David had never truly known rock-bottom until now. He didn’t exactly feel the worst he’d ever felt in his life, but he certainly did not feel the best, either, and doubted he would for a very long time.

The whole pious ordeal with Jack wasn’t going as he hoped it would. Every passing day left him feeling more and more tumultuous with restless emotion, a feeling he didn’t want or care to have, if only he had a choice in the matter. David had much more important things in his life to worry about besides boys. Especially considering he should probably be worrying about girls instead. Especially if the boy in question was his best friend, who he saw every day, giving him ample opportunity to indiscreetly observe him when he wasn't looking and linger on his face for far longer than any normal human being should when faced with the most insufferable, arrogant swindler in all of Manhattan.

Not that David did that. Or thought about doing that, even, because that would not only be extremely weird but also testament to the fact that he couldn’t control himself anymore. And maybe even the realization that he never could to begin with.

Because Jack loved him, he loved him not. David had meandered off into an empty side street, infrequent passerbyers nodding to him as he went by, eventually settling off the side beneath a striped awning that did nothing to shield him from the sun this early in the morning. He didn’t mind it, though. The fall air was crisp and smelled of freshly baked bread, which did nothing to ease the aching in his chest like he’d been punched just a bit too hard. 

David plucked petals from a poor little daisy who didn’t deserve mutilation, reciting the phrases of the girlish game with uncouth desperation, counting the petals in a whisper until he got to the very last one.

The last petal he’d whispered aloud was “he loves me.” Disheartened, David didn’t pluck the final petal, nor did he admit defeat. He set it gently on the pavement beside him, sighing with all of his forlorn chest. How spectacular, that even fate itself (which David wholeheartedly didn’t believe in, but for deconstructive purposes he’d managed to convince himself lately that things were not as they’d always seemed to him) was out to bite him in the ass.

"Preoccupied" wasn’t meaningful enough to summarize his sorry state. It sounded almost pleasant, like he got caught up with something and had every strength to break free from the addicting spell. "Obsessed" felt more accurate. Completely and utterly infatuated, the single culminated emotion of a sonnet. Sunlight feels nice when you’re millions of miles away from the sphere of fire itself, but up close, you’d burn to a crisp in milliseconds.

David thought of Jack, and the daisy, heart aflutter with shame that he’d trusted the petals on a flower to depict his future, and despair that the outcome hadn’t been what he wanted. David chose to ignore the results of his game, wishing with every ounce of faith in his body that daisies didn’t always tell the truth.


End file.
